The chamber settles into amber quiet as Harl strikes the flint. A small fire catches beside the opened stair, while copper lines keep the travelers’ impressions distinct.
Harl
Eat, if you need it. The roots are bitter, but they keep the body steady when a borrowed voice tries to climb through it.
Harl offers the provisions without stepping closer. Mira sits near the fire and turns her cracked ring beneath the light, tracing its fracture without touching the stone.
Mira
Edris’s trail leads south, but the command below may still be listening through her. Following her is not the same as rescuing her.
Tessa watches the copper lines instead of the stair. When a faint second rhythm passes beneath the floor, she lifts one finger, and the lines separate again.
Tessa
That was not Edris. It was an echo wearing the shape of her answer. If you follow, ask her one question and wait for only one voice.
Harl
We will remain here unless you ask otherwise. What do you intend to do with Edris’s trail, Sil’Thalis?
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the travelers' practical cooperation
“" who was this Edris" I ask taking one of the roots to try”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +0)
Sil'Thalis
Who was Edris?
Sil’Thalis takes one of the dried roots from Harl’s offering and bites through its bitter, fibrous flesh. A warming steadiness spreads through his chest and limbs, carrying no foreign voice or command.
Harl
Edris was a courier and mapmaker from the northern roads, a young adult woman who traveled alone until the false Domini seal found her. She had no house allegiance that we knew.
Mira
She joined us at a rain shelter two weeks ago. Quiet, capable, suspicious of every marked door. The command reached her after she accepted passage through the southern waystones.
The root’s heat settles cleanly into Sil’Thalis’s scar-born circuit. The copper lines record the nourishment separately from the stair, while Mira’s cracked ring gives a brief, troubled shimmer.
Tessa
Edris still argued with the voice. That matters. When she spoke alone, she asked for water, remembered her mother, and warned us not to follow the seal.
Harl
She was not the command. She was the one resisting it. If you find her, ask what she chooses now, and do not mistake silence for an answer.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find Edris
“I ask Harl which southern waystones Edris used.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +2)
Sil'Thalis
Which southern waystones did Edris use?
Harl feeds another root into the small fire. Copper light catches the three distinct impressions beneath his boots, while Mira’s cracked ring turns toward the southern passage.
Harl
The first was the Weeping Cairn, two days south of the rain shelter. From there she followed the Split Antler stone, then the Wayfarer’s Tooth near the old orchard road.
Mira
The false seal opened each marker. The third waystone carried her beyond the common road, toward a sunken milestone and the hills below it.
Mira draws three short lines in the ash, marking the cairn, the split stone, and the tooth. A fourth line angles southeast before ending abruptly.
Tessa
She did not use the fourth stone. The command pulled toward it, but Edris turned away. Her footprints continued south from the Wayfarer’s Tooth.
Harl
You now have the route: Weeping Cairn, Split Antler, Wayfarer’s Tooth, then south to the sunken milestone. The trail was fresh when we last saw it.